S. Horowitz & Co.

Litigation and intellectual property were particularly prominent areas of the firm’s work in 2023, alongside a substantial commercial practice serving Israeli and foreign clients on acquisitions and investments.[1] Clients named at that time included Shikun & Binui, Paz, Phoenix, Strauss, Teva, Shapir, Booking, Bosch, and Thyssenkrupp.[1]

The firm had 200 lawyers, including 70 partners, and 325 employees in January 2023.[1] Its offices occupied nearly 5,000 square meters in central Tel Aviv, including a preserved building on Ahad Ha’am Street near Rothschild Boulevard.[1] Some activity had moved across the road to Beit Zion, including staff from the Asher Held firm, which merged into S. Horowitz in 2021.[1] By the end of 2024, its lawyer headcount had reached 238, placing it tenth in the following year’s Dun’s 100 ranking.[2]

Accounts published in 2009 and 2023 give 1921 as the firm’s founding year.[4][1] A retrospective in The Jerusalem Post identifies British barrister Harry Sacher as its founder in Jerusalem and recounts that, after his return to England, his partner Solomon (Shalom) Horowitz took over and renamed the firm.[5] A 2006 account gives a conflicting chronology, dating the firm’s founding to 1933 and spelling the founder’s surname “Sacker.”[6] The retrospective lists the original firm’s clients as including the Palestine Electric Corporation, identified as the predecessor of the Israel Electric Company, the Hebrew University, the Weizmann Institute, the Hadassah Medical Organization, and the Jewish Agency; it characterizes these institutions as helping lay the foundations of the State of Israel.[5]

After Horowitz’s retirement, the firm passed to Abraham Levin and Jacob Solomon.[6] In 1953, the partnership split: Solomon and Lipschitz took the Haifa branch, while Levin concentrated on Tel Aviv.[6] Amnon Goldenberg joined Levin and became the central partner.[6]

The same Jerusalem Post retrospective connects the firm’s history to Beit Shalom, Horowitz’s private residence in Jerusalem, and reports that the firm’s offices eventually moved from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.[5] It recounts that Horowitz never married, hosted gatherings attended by members of the country’s elite and visiting dignitaries, and bequeathed Beit Shalom to Keren Hayesod for social and cultural events.[5] By 2021, the building was being used by several lawyers.[5]

In 2006, the firm employed 65 lawyers, including 21 partners.[6] Its first merger took place in 2021, when the labor-law boutique Asher Held & Co. joined it, bringing five partners and ten lawyers.[7] The incoming firm had worked in labor law, pension arrangements, and social security law for more than 40 years.[7] The expanded department was to be led by Asher Held together with the incoming partners and S. Horowitz partner Ofir Pozner.[7]

A preserved building on Ahad Ha’am Street continued to serve the firm in March 2026, when it housed 240 of its employees.[8] Shalom Horowitz, born in England, was described at that time as one of the firm’s two founding fathers and a prominent lawyer in Mandatory Palestine and the early years of Israel.[8]

The firm’s practice areas in 2006 included civil and commercial litigation, corporate and commercial law, finance transactions and banking, intellectual property and information technology, antitrust, and economic and white-collar offenses.[6] Its work also encompassed communications, class actions, real estate, planning and construction, insurance and pensions, tenders, high technology, energy, labor law, aviation law, and taxation.[6] Criminal litigation was another area of practice: Dr. Dana Wolf worked as an associate in its Criminal Litigation Department after admission to the Israeli Bar Association in 2001, although the dates of her employment are not specified.[9]

In 2022, firm lawyers Shay Gimelstein, Ilan Golod, and Israel Klein represented the Orthodox Palestine Society of the Holy Land in a dispute over Jerusalem’s Alexander Courtyard church, which the society had previously owned.[10] The Jerusalem District Court did not ratify the society’s claims, but ruled that the Israeli government had to make an affirmative decision on the issue and that the land registrar alone lacked authority to decide it.[10]

Dr. Omri Sender served as a partner and chair of the firm’s public international law practice in 2024.[3] On May 7 that year, members of a World Jewish Congress Jewish Diplomatic Corps delegation visited the firm for a briefing on Israel’s legal battles, including the case brought by South Africa at the International Court of Justice and Israel’s defense.[3] Sender led a discussion of Israel’s legal responses to terrorism, particularly in light of October 7.[3]

A July 2024 program for a World Jewish Congress delegation of legal academics from American universities also scheduled Sender to brief participants alongside the Israel Defense Forces’ International Law Department.[11] The subsequent account of the mission described the briefing as addressing the legal implications of the military campaign against Hamas.[12]

Benny Sheffer, Amit Steinman, and Eran Bezalel became managing partners on January 1, 2023, succeeding Yehoshua (Shuki) Horesh, Alex Hertman, and Tal Band, who had led the firm for about two decades.[1] The incoming managing partners had begun their careers at the firm as interns in the 1990s.[1] Their predecessors remained professionally active, while Udi Artzi chaired the firm’s board.[1]

About 90 percent of the firm’s partners in 2023 had started their careers there.[1] Lawyers who developed their careers within the firm received a share of its profits from their first day as partners, and partnership candidates generally needed at least seven years’ tenure, subject to exceptions.[1] Discussing the leadership handover, Bezalel said, “No firm that wants to survive can ignore generational transition.”[1]

In 2009, the firm established an alumni club, described as the first such club created by an Israeli law firm.[4] Its purposes included maintaining contact with former lawyers and interns, facilitating professional and business connections, and keeping alumni informed about the firm.[4] By then, the firm had hundreds of former lawyers and interns, including people who had become judges, businesspeople, media figures, and academics.[4]

In 2021, S. Horowitz was the sole Israeli member of Lex Mundi, an international organization of independent law firms operating in more than 125 countries and representing more than 22,000 lawyers.[7]

The firm participated in a September 2024 charity basketball tournament organized by DLA Piper’s Israel group for Shalva.[13] It won the tournament by defeating Gornitzky in the final, and its Barak Orion was named Most Valuable Player.[13] The event raised NIS 120,000 for Shalva’s “Rising in Rank” project for young adults with disabilities.[13]

In October 2026, the firm was represented at a DLA Piper-hosted dinner with Latet Od, an organization connecting volunteer attorneys with people unable to afford legal representation.[14] The gathering sought to promote and expand pro bono work among leading Israeli law firms.[14]

Attorneys from S. Horowitz were among those attending a March 2019 meeting to plan a public campaign described as defending the judicial system against proposed legislation affecting the High Court’s powers and politicians’ immunity.[15] The individual attorneys who attended were not identified.[15]

During the debate over proposed judicial changes in 2023, managing partner Amit Steinman said foreign clients had contacted him with concerns about the direction of business activity and foreign investment.[1] The firm’s managing partners argued that legal uncertainty could affect Israel’s appeal to foreign investors.[1]